Georgia's legislature, now run by a Republican supermajority, has inched ahead on a resolution endorsing the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Honestly, I thought that fad died out sometime in 2011, but it's easy to forget that the 2012 election firmed up Republican control in red states, and that ideas like this have empowered sponsors. The rationale, from the bill text:

Quote:

WHEREAS, the original purpose of the United States Senate was to protect the sovereignty of the states from the federal government and to give each individual state government representation in the federal legislative branch of government; and

WHEREAS, the Seventeenth Amendment has resulted in a large federal government with power and control that cannot be checked by the states; and...

WHEREAS, since the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, the size and scope of the federal government has grown exponentially and severely weakened the powers held by the individual states and the people as acknowledged by the Tenth Amendment to theUnited States Constitution; and

WHEREAS, the United States Senate was designed to protect the rights and interests of the individual states, and the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment would help to prevent the many unfunded mandates and unconstitutional laws passed onto those states by the federal government.

Is any of this prevented by the direct election of senators? Sort of. If state legislatures were re-empowered to pick senators, there'd be no nettlesome Democrats from North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, or Michigan. The only states with Republican senators who wouldn't be there under the legislative-election system are New Hampshire and Maine. So, yes, this would make it easier to undo a few things.

The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted on May 31, 1913, and provided for the direct election of U.S. Senators by popular vote.

Now, 100 years later, a group of Georgia state representatives would like to repeal the 17th Amendment and return the election of senators to the state legislatures, a move they feel would restore the intent of the Founding Fathers.

House Resolution 273 was authored by District 18 Rep. Kevin Cooke, R-Carrollton, to request that the U.S. Congress begin action to repeal the 17th Amendment. The process would require a two-thirds approval by both the U.S. House and Senate, then ratification by at least three-quarters of the states. Political pundits give the move little chance of success.

Cooke introduced a similar House resolution in 2010, but it never made it out of committee for a House floor vote.

“It’s a way we would again have our voice heard in the federal government, a way that doesn’t exist now,” Cooke said Monday afternoon. “This isn’t an idea of mine. This was what James Madison was writing. This would be a restoration of the Constitution, about how government is supposed to work.”

Cooke said the election of U.S. Senators by state legislatures was what Madison intended to give the states a check on the federal government, based on state sovereignty and ability of states to govern themselves.

“The fact that this coincides with the 100th anniversary gives us a pretty good snapshot of what has happened to the federal government since then,” he said. “The federal government has grown exponentially since the amendment was ratified. This would restore the constitution to what it was in 1913.”

Cooke said that other state legislatures are working on similar resolutions and former Georgia U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, a Democrat, proposed a similar measure in his last year in office.

Dr. Robert Sanders, University of West Georgia political science professor, said the reason the 17th Amendment was passed was to stop widespread corruption that was rampant in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“There was a lot of corruption from interest groups who were buying state legislators,” Sanders said. “The legislators were easy to buy out and the interest groups could get who they wanted for U.S. Senators.”

He called the current move to appeal the amendment “a step backwards” and “a step by one party to find another way to stay in power by circumventing the process.”

Sanders said he feels the resolution has little chance to make it through the Georgia General Assembly, let alone Congress.

“I can’t see any democratic person allowing this to happen,” he said. “It’s just an antiquated way to hold on to power.”

However, Cooke said he doesn’t believe corruption would be a problem in this current era.

“It’s the responsibility of each and every citizen to make sure of who gets elected to office, that they’re principled people,” he said. “You can look at the current state of ethics and transparency. Anybody has the ability to look at money being donated to campaigns. It would keep anything from being done out of the public eye.”

Dudgeon, although signed on as a sponsor, admits the resolution is a “long shot,” but added that it’s a conversation that needs to be had.

“The way we choose our Senators and the super-giant expansion of the federal government makes it something so important that it needs to be said,” he said. “We had the same resolution two years ago when I started in the General Assembly. It didn’t make it to a vote. It’s hard to get to a vote because a lot of people don’t understand the history behind it and the connection between the states having no representation in Washington. The federal government has taken over all the powers that used to be left to the states, because the Senate doesn’t represent the states anymore.”

Dudgeon said that, as for corruption, we have a different kind of corruption now with millions of dollars of lobbying money and influence at the national level.

Speaking on the type of corruption that brought about the passage of the 17th Amendment, Dudgeon said, “With all the news coverage and blogs we have now, that kind of corruption would be hard to exist, like it was 100 years ago. What was the cure of 1913 is now worse than the disease.”

In a posting to the Peach Pundit blog site, Dudgeon said, “In some ways, states have become giant departments of the federal government. All the big benefit programs like Medicaid, welfare, and now 'Obamacare,' are left to the states to somehow make them work. A Senate that represented the states would be so much more reluctant to go along with these giant expansions.”

High Tech is Sorcery and the people who are really powerful are literally telling people to commit crimes using the psychic interspace created by the WWW and Wireless. They are controlling peoples actions like drones . The two things are deeply intertwined. The more man's brain interfaces with machines the creepier it gets. They use brains separate from a human body in a supercomputer and you have The Image of the Beast. The military has been doing this since the 50s

Personally based a study of one individual here in DC I'd prefer the Republicans do the right thing, the thing they really would love to accomplish and repeal the 19th amendment.

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Originally Posted by Chris616

High Tech is Sorcery and the people who are really powerful are literally telling people to commit crimes using the psychic interspace created by the WWW and Wireless. They are controlling peoples actions like drones . The two things are deeply intertwined. The more man's brain interfaces with machines the creepier it gets. They use brains separate from a human body in a supercomputer and you have The Image of the Beast. The military has been doing this since the 50s

The Constitution was designed to spread the power around as much as possible so that no one entity had too much. The 17th never should have been considered, let alone ratified.

Exactly which is what the left doesn't like about it, because they are power mad so they can run everyone's life and ensure egalitarian outcomes in life. Takes a LOT of power to shape people's lives for the benefit of the state, while they sell it as something for the people.

Exactly which is what the left doesn't like about it, because they are power mad so they can run everyone's life and ensure egalitarian outcomes in life. Takes a LOT of power to shape people's lives for the benefit of the state, while they sell it as something for the people.

Repeal the 19th Admentment damn it!

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris616

High Tech is Sorcery and the people who are really powerful are literally telling people to commit crimes using the psychic interspace created by the WWW and Wireless. They are controlling peoples actions like drones . The two things are deeply intertwined. The more man's brain interfaces with machines the creepier it gets. They use brains separate from a human body in a supercomputer and you have The Image of the Beast. The military has been doing this since the 50s

This is kind of ironic coming from you I mean the Dems you vote for have stripped us of many things.

Of which things have the Dems (he voted for) stripped you?

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That rabbit is crazy; I'm Brian Waters!

Kotter: "You are lucky I'm truly not the vindictive or psycho type...I'd be careful from now on, and I'd just back the hell off if I were you....otherwise, the Mizzou "extension office" life might get exciting"

It's extremism to prefer the system that our founding fathers created and that we lived comfortably with for the first 125 years or so of our nation's existence?

I bet you don't think it's extremism to change the meaning of the 13th amendment to include the concept of gay marriage as a constitutional right. I doubt that you'd characterize it as extremism to get rid of the electoral college. I bet you think it's extreme to use the amendment process to change the constitution but it's not extreme to get a court to do it.

I'm in favor of repeal of the 17th amendment. The states should be more meaningful entities in our federal system.

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"I'll see you guys in New York." ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to US military personnel upon his release from US custody at Camp Bucca in Iraq during Obama's first year in office.

It's extremism to prefer the system that our founding fathers created and that we lived comfortably with for the first 125 years or so of our nation's existence?

I bet you don't think it's extremism to change the meaning of the 13th amendment to include the concept of gay marriage as a constitutional right. I doubt that you'd characterize it as extremism to get rid of the electoral college. I bet you think it's extreme to use the amendment process to change the constitution but it's not extreme to get a court to do it.

I'm in favor of repeal of the 17th amendment. The states should be more meaningful entities in our federal system.

One of the pros to repeal I was thinking of is that the Senate is set up to be the upper house, with (from my understanding) more power. The idea being that the Senate would be sort of a hand picked collection of politicians who were held in high esteem by their contemporaries, a think tank or a collection of wisdom from people with more of a long view on the issues of the day. That's a far cry from what I consider our Senate to be right now.

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"As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind I'd still be in prison."

One of the pros to repeal I was thinking of is that the Senate is set up to be the upper house, with (from my understanding) more power. The idea being that the Senate would be sort of a hand picked collection of politicians who were held in high esteem by their contemporaries, a think tank or a collection of wisdom from people with more of a long view on the issues of the day. That's a far cry from what I consider our Senate to be right now.

That makes sense to me.

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"I'll see you guys in New York." ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to US military personnel upon his release from US custody at Camp Bucca in Iraq during Obama's first year in office.